MEMBERS of Okehampton Rotary Club have been active during the Covid-19 crisis providing vital funds and food vouchers to help families out of a tight spot.

The club went to the aid of a number of families in need of financial help, after being contacted by Greta Button from the Okehampton Covid-19 Support Group.

They have also provided a tablet computer to enable older people in lockdown at a care home stay in touch with their families.

A number of the families the Rotary has helped found themselves without a safety net when work evaporated at the start of the lockdown and there was a delay in Universal Credit coming through.

The club provided Co-op food vouchers to a family of four adults and three children after two of the breadwinners were laid off.

They did the same for a family with three children, where the father was on a zero hours contract and was being given minimal hours work, but not being furloughed and the mother without work.

The Rotary went to the rescue too after the manager of Okehampton Foodbank delivered a food parcel to a young family with three small children under five, and found them trying to cope with no cooker or washing machine.

The Rotary paid for and installed a refurbished washing machine, while the Okehampton Lions provided a cooker. A further family was provided with a refurbished freezer by the Rotary club.

The club has also supplied materials for the Covid-19 Support Group’s art packs and Waitrose shopping vouchers for cooking packs for local children, the latter also funded by the Waitrose ‘Community Matters’ scheme, with thanks to Waitrose community coordinator Vicki Mills.

The Rotary responded to a request from West Devon CVS for a tablet computer to help the residents of Kent House in Okehampton keep in touch with their families during the lockdown, which has proved a great success.

The club’s support has continued into July with £80 of Waitrose vouchers to the Okehampton Foodbank and given £250 in response to a request from the Mary Budding Trust, to a grandmother to buy petrol to drive her granddaughter to see her mother in hospital in Bristol.

Rotary president Hugh McPhillips said the club was open to any other requests for help during the pandemic.

‘If you have a need, please apply to our community chair John Moppett at j.moppett @btinternet.com’ he said.